I heard Lou tell the maître d’, “Two for brunch,” but I couldn’t stop staring around the restaurant. It was busy, even considering it was a weekday. The curse of Santa Monica. There, the corner where Carrigan had been seated last night. Across from the bar where I’d whiled away some time. Behind it, a woman with a lot of dark curly hair pulled away from her face. Sleeves of tattoos disappearing beneath her T-shirt. I squinted. A gap in her teeth you could lob a tangerine through. Christ. Same bartender.

“Do you have a reservation?” The maître d’ frowned and tapped at the computer screen ahead of them.

“We’ll sit at the bar,” Lou offered.

Shit. “Let’s go somewhere else, Lou,” I said, my mouth dry.

Lou waited until she’d thanked the maître d’ for escorting us to the bar to respond. “I should be able to let it go,” she said, leaning close to me. “But I can’t.”

“What? You mean . . . Ellen?”

Lou glared at me. I was ruining her buoyant mood. “I mean Carrigan,” she said.

I started to sweat. I wanted to order a drink, desperately, wanted the fuzz that would cloud my mind and make everything feel less sharp and bitter, but I didn’t want the bartender to get a good look at me, either. Don’t be silly. She doesn’t remember you.

“It would’ve meant something to me,” Lou said. “You see that name everywhere. It would’ve been big for us. Toppling the patriarchy and all that,” she said, adding air quotes to try to convince me she was teasing, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes and she coughed gently into her hand after she said it, like the words had bruised her throat on their way out.

“Can I get you ladies something to drink?” The bartender leaned forward on her elbows on the glossy redwood-slab bar. Her T-shirt hiked up an inch, revealing the cluster of bumblebees on her biceps. I looked down at the menu, studying it like she’d quiz me later.

“Coffee,” Lou said.

“Make it two,” I replied, not looking up.

“Really? Wait a second,” Lou said to the bartender, then turned to me, eyebrows raised. “No mimosa, no Irish coffee?”

“I meant it, I’m taking a break from alcohol.” At the Sole del Mare, anyway.

Lou smiled at me, a megawatt dazzler, and I felt a little warm glow in my chest—the first I could remember since Ellen died. The bartender stared at me for a moment before she turned away. Maybe trying to place me. Maybe curious why Lou had pushed it.

“Anyway, I thought it would be good to come here. I’ve thought about it since that woman mentioned it. We would’ve been here tonight anyway, for Carrigan’s happy hour.”